Skip to main content

UN Rights Body 'Deplores' India's Measures to Deport Rohingya Muslims




NEWS18 » INDIA

1-MIN READ

UN Rights Body 'Deplores' India's Measures to Deport Rohingya Muslims

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council, also crticised India for seeking to deport Rohingyas who have taken shelter in India.

Updated:September 11, 2017, 6:00 PM IST

A child cries as Rohingya refugees walk across paddy fields in the pouring rain at dusk after crossing the border from Myanmar on September 09, in Gundum, Bangladesh. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Geneva: The top UN human rights official on Monday denounced Myanmar’s “brutal security operation” against Muslim Rohingyas in Rakhine state, saying it was disproportionate to insurgent attacks carried out last month. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council, also crticised India for seeking to deport Rohingyas who have taken shelter in India.

“I deplore current measures in India to deport Rohingyas at a time of such violence against them in their country,” Zeid said, noting that some 40,000 Rohingyas had settled in India, including 16,000 who have received refugee documentation. Noting India’s obligations under international law, he said: “India cannot carry out collective expulsions, or return people to a place where they risk torture or other serious violations.”

Communal tensions appeared to be rising across Myanmar on Monday after two weeks of violence in Rakhine state that have triggered an exodus of about 300,000 Rohingya Muslims, prompting the government to tighten security at Buddhist pagodas. 

Zeid said more than 270,000 people had fled to Bangladesh, with more trapped on the border, amid reports of the burning of villages and extrajudicial killings. “We have received multiple reports and satellite imagery of security forces and local militia burning Rohingya villages, and consistent accounts of extrajudicial killings, including shooting fleeing civilians,” Zeid told the Geneva forum.

He cited reports that Myanmar authorities had begun to lay landmines along the border with Bangladesh and would require returnees to provide “proof of citizenship”.

Rohingya have been stripped of civil and political rights including citizenship rights for decades, he added. “I call on the government to end its current cruel military operation, with accountability for all violations that have occurred, and to reverse the pattern of severe and widespread discrimination against the Rohingya population,” Zeid said. “The situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

Last year, Zeid’s office issued a report, based on interviews with Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh after a previous military assault, which he said on Monday had “suggested a widespread or systematic attack against the community, possibly amounting to crimes against humanity”.


© Copyright Network18 Media and Investments Ltd 2016. All rights reserved. NETWORK 18 SITES

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Check out the Nokia 2, a budget phone with a monster battery

Android Authority Check out the Nokia 2, a budget phone with a monster battery 19 hours ago HMD Global  is slowly building up its portfolio of stock-Android-running smartphones. In addition to the trio of mid-rangers (Nokia 3, 5, and 6)  it launched at MWC , the company bolstered its high-end with the  Nokia 8 , and now the other side of spectrum is getting some attention. Just  leaked by Evan Blass , the Nokia 2 looks… well, like a generic cheap phone. If you have a visceral hate of bezels, you’ll probably want to close this post and move on, but design is hardly the point here. Blass didn’t share any details about the Nokia 2, but we can make some educated guesses based on some other clues we’ve got about the phone. First, you might have noticed that the phones in the leaked renders show October 5 as the date. Dates in renders are often set to match the launch time, but this could be an old render and there’s still time for things to change. Read more Han...

How safe are our kids in schools?

TOI How safe are our kids in schools? 7 hours ago by Praveen Lenka   Whatsapp Facebook Google Plus Twitter Email Linkedin SMS SHARE HIGHLIGHTS Parents’ Suggestions Feedback from parents should be taken in the right stride by school authorities. PTA should have more authority and a right to put their points across in all school matters, especially when it comes to the safety of their children. No child, especially small kids, should be allowed to go alone to the washroom. There should be zero tolerance for non-compliance with child safety guidelines. Official authorities should conduct regular checks in schools to ensure that they have implemented safety measures. Schools should take the help of professional counsellors/psychologists to interview potential recruits. Over the past two days, twin incidents of students getting assaulted in their school premises have been reported from the National Capital. Close on...

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 is smaller, faster, and probably a lot better

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 is smaller, faster, and probably a lot better Sep 11, 2017, 4:19am EDT Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge As statements of intent in phone design go, it’s hard to think of a stronger one than the original Mi Mix. Calling it a “concept phone” and drawing on the talents of legendary designer Philippe Starck, Xiaomi built a minimalist slab dominated by a huge screen with tiny bezels that foreshadowed the biggest trend in 2017's smartphones. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the most practical phone to actually use. But now, just under a year later, Xiaomi is ready to reveal a sequel — and on first glance the Mi Mix 2 looks like a phone that you’d be far more likely to want to live with. A SMALLER SCREEN WITH A NARROWER ASPECT RATIO At 5.99 inches, the screen is quite a bit smaller than the colossal 6.44-inch panel used in the original. It’s likely to feel a little smaller than those numbers would imply, too, because it uses an 18:9 aspect ratio compared to 17:9, mean...